This article features a lengthy research section with the purpose of showing the degree of meat eating culture in present China. It also allows me to show off more of my holiday snaps!
Experience as a Vegan in China
There will be a few cultural shocks to adjust to. One is that electric scooters, are considered more person than vehicle, meaning that they will pass freely through a green man, along with cars turning slowly at a corner. This makes roads extremely chaotic and dangerous to cross, especially when you realise having a scooter in China is like having a smart phone, in the sense that EVERYONE has one practically. The standing toilets were also quite strange.
Some things were unexpected. Like the villain of Toy Story 3 – ‘Lotso’ – appeared to be somewhat of a celebrity all over China. I kept on seeing his face everywhere. Other things, like smoking in public places were expected.
If you are travelling to China, I strongly recommend acquiring some kind of tour guide. You are essentially paying for extra time if you don't know the language and you'll probably end up saving money in the long run related to correctly pre-booking taxis and getting good hotel prices. It makes situations like navigating the subway and inquiring about animal foods so much easier meaning a less stressful holiday. If you know anyone that is Chinese and preferably plant based, try and travel together. Yes translation technology exists. And if Shenzhen is your first visit, you'll probably find a tech-based market place with a host of translator options where if you are good enough, you could get yourself a discount.
I was overly reliant on my tour guide and then felt like I was pestering and being needy reminding to double check things. Acquiring some kind of translation device is also recommended. Here's the problem: the Great Firewall of China. This deactivates Google, and so Google Translate. You could use a VPN, Proton worked for me, but I only had a couple of servers, and everything was extremely slow throughout the week. Another option recommended to me by someone that lives in China is swtcn.fdkwl888.com, but I didn't use it. Since there were lots of connection issues and super slow internet with a western VPN, that is then why I'd recommend getting a physical device that specialises in Chinese.
But when buying a translator device, be cautious. It carries with it the same issue as instead of putting the translator code into the device, it's stingy and out-sourced and you require some kind of sim connection or WiFi connection to make it work, meaning conversation still won't be seamless. Though in China, WiFi's aren't a super protected thing like in the UK and people will normally give them out, I assume to help with the WeChat pay or Alipay. It even got to the point where I could guess certain passwords because most of the time they are the same! 88888888.
And you may think, well I'll just get a Chinese sim card. Okay, but there is ID verification required and negotiation required to make sure you're not getting ripped off in your sim deals there. So it's a whole hassle waiting for you. And you won't even know how good your translator is without reviews as when buying it you won't have on field experience with Chinese people. There's usually awkward delays with translators wondering 'why is that not working' and things taking forever. It's not a seamless experience. So that's why I'd get one to fill in the gaps, but also have your tour guide.
But it doesn't stop there. I also highly recommend you print multiple pages of sentences of commonly spoken things, both questions, and then answers they can point to when asking people for advice or about something. So it would be Chinese in larger writing, and then English beside for your own navigation and you can familiarise yourself with the layout of it. Here is a cheat sheet and some pointing pictures to help you get started:
And that's you got a small library of words and pictures you can point to for assistance if you don't have a tour guide or having technology problems. You'll then want to get a screenshot of a map, and the Chinese symbols for where it is you are staying and have it all in one location both on phone, and physical. Printing shops aren't actually that difficult to come by.
On this trip I visiting Beijing, Jiangxi, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Hong Kong. Eating a plant based diet had proven to be quite difficult. I stayed in hotels in the down-town big cities, I went into more rural lower-income areas. The options are the same. In any given city or town, you will not find obesity as you would in the UK or of course, the United States, yet. But I assume that won't be for long. Meat — it's everywhere. And asking for it removed, is sometimes met with confusion.
Western and European cultures could learn something from the Chinese. Each environment I went to across those locations was extremely safe, I assume to be a knock on effect from the strictness of the Chinese Communist Party's security where even train stations and undergrounds had near airport level security. On some trains there is even some interesting reading material:
Be it the mosquito infested land of Jiangxi or central Beijing, people just, go outside. Go to the mall. In a high rise estate in Jiangxi, I even saw in the evening, children and young adults gathered around a large screen watching a film together. And weather is a factor that prevents gatherings like this in the UK, where the norm is get your shopping, go home, lock your door, draw the curtains and watch TV. But also I have seen the variation of welcoming nature in China that does show me why things are different.
It was my suffering of jet lag early into my vacation that led to the most bizarre impromptu dentist experience I'll ever have that showed me pure cultural difference. Nap time in China is practically sacred. This particular dentist in question, was part of a hospital in Jiangxi. Worth noting because during lunch time, the whole place was deserted. Bar the two odd ailing individuals limping about waiting, the entire shopping-mall styled complex was deserted. No reception cover, no security, no doctors, nothing. Though I didn't inspect the entire building as I assume this wasn't an intensive care site as they even just turned off the escalators and front doors just wide open. And I thought some might see that as highly unprofessional. I saw it as a form of cultural wealth in terms of progression. Certainly couldn't try that in a lot of other places without total collapse.
Anyway, in the late afternoon, when the show was getting back on the road. At the dentist they didn't have individual rooms. Instead, a larger room with booths made up by dividers. It seemed like friends of the dentists would just waltz in unannounced and start chatting away mid-operation getting in a right good old gab. And due to these extra interruptions, unaccustomed to the sleeping schedule, I ended up dozing off in the waiting room. It was then I was woken up, not to be told not to be rude for sleeping, but to be led by one of the dentists into one of the booths and recline the dentist chair to have a little nap time myself including a nice fresh overall as a blanket! And my appointment can just resume when I wake up next in time. That just wouldn't happen in the west. A walk-in appointment bear in mind, which I eventually had, and the young man that gave me a scale and polish and replaced my filling without any pain killers did a stellar job at a price that didn't break the bank. My opinion of dentists had improved greatly after that from being glorified overpriced tooth brushes with petty salesmen egos that you'll probably witness in the U.K.
The other example of Chinese culture we are mainly discussing is woefully in need of improvement. Animal products are unavoidable. Meaning that if you are to eat out, you will experience cross contamination. Characters exist in Chinese for veganism - 纯素 - but even then the concept is widely and poorly understood. Therefore to many, no animal products, doesn't mean no milk. Or if you say, no meat, as ramen based dishes are very popular, you must still confirm additionally no meat exists inside the soup or the broth.
It was also my experience waiters and waitresses like to play dumb. In the west, if the waiter doesn't know something about a dish, they go find it out if an ingredient is present in a dish or not. But I had found in China it is common if the waiter doesn't know if something has animal products in it, they apparently then don't know and that's the end of it. And since they are not the chef, it's not their job to find it out, so you have to push them on it - politely to achieve your request of course. Though usually if things did get that bad, it's probably not worth eating at that place due to the lack of vegetation in the options anyway.
And so it is in China as a vegan, a lot of self-employed food vendors, make food to order. Common is it to have an indoor canteen, and chefs rent out small sections of it. And you can simply choose a dish from their limited selection of the garnishes - that is the vegetables, as you'll unfortunately find - and ask for it not to have meat added into it after of course the base ingredients like sauces and such are void of animal products. Egg noodles actually didn't appear to be too popular I found when asking, and commonly met with 'no'. Since a lot of people are self employed, don't feel too bad about being picky, you're a precious customer, they will want to help you to get a payment. And who knows, maybe then you'll eat there again?
Another extreme cultural difference in China that will work in your favour regarding food is the freedom of places to eat. And it is not an offense to bring food from another establishment to eat in another eatery unless they specifically say, but generally don't. As long as you buy something from the place you are sitting in. Something I assume that is naturally born out of having such high amounts of competition given the sheer quantity of choice those without dietary restriction have, that they aren't going to turn down a customer when providing a service to gain even a little bit of money if chairs are empty.
This means you can order a nice marinated tofu dish from one location, your stir fried noodles from another location, and a veg dish from the joint you're going to sit in, and don't forget a nice fresh pressed juice from a juice stall or maybe going to a fruit shop and getting a couple of white coconuts, and then eat it all in the one place. Again, where having a tour guide comes in really handy to make the whole thing a breeze.
Another thing to note about Chinese eating culture is how they eat, and I'm not talking about eating with chop sticks. In social food gatherings, if you are eating with Chinese people, the style is instead a 'central self-serving' system, where large bowls of different food are placed on a rotating table in the centre, as people spin the table to individually pick off the parts they want to eat. And then spitting out their debris on the table.
If you're thinking like me, then you're going to be immediately thinking unhygienic, and a potential risk for disease though I didn't see people's lips looking ripped off from herpes. But as a vegan also, that means also potential spilling of the meat broth into other dishes voiding them as an option for you. Though for such instances for me, they were kind and patient enough to give me a bigger bowl, and fill up my bowl first so I didn't need to pick off parts of the centre in that free for all.
That's not to say dotted about in some places though few and far between, there are strictly plant based foods, or 'vegetarian' restaurants. The word 'vegetarian' in China actually refers to what it's supposed to mean - the consumption of vegetation and therefore excluding milk and eggs and honey and such - unlike the corrupted western interpretation. In Beijing, I went to three vegan restaurants, though two were buffets.
The restaurant located in a small courtyard off a bustling high street was called 'Vegetarian & Drink'. And had some very nice options that I took pictures of to show the waitress, and now, you too:
Then after you can try and go for a walk along the pond. There is an array of music venues all stacked beside each other blaring out different types of music. It's on a river called Shichahai 什刹海; and in the evening becomes absolutely mobbed, and still busy right up until 00:00. Alcohol culture is not huge in China, so doesn't become degenerative and unpleasant from people drinking too much like it might in some holiday destinations of Spain.
As for the buffet places. One was far superior to the other, that didn't even have rice, but still had plenty of options. It's called 世纪金源购物中心 (Golden Resources Mall) located in a maze of a shopping mall that had at least 30 different food outlets in the one place.
However the main place we are going to discuss is a bigger buffet. And if you are a vegan going to Beijing then it is an absolute must because it is near both Tiananmen Square, and The Forbidden City which you'll probably be visiting.
The Forbidden City is especially charming, because some men, but mostly women make the effort to dress up in traditional dress and take pictures. I was convinced some were doing it just to look nice for going to a special place.
The buffet is an award winning plant based buffet called, 'Vegetable Feast Buffet'. And the options in here are so vast, you could eat here all week and not get bored. Check out what I filled my plate with:
Just kidding, that is what I was served on the plane, that's a little vegan in-joke for any experienced travellers. Here are instead the pictures I took of the buffet before it closed for the evening:
And just like at the dentist, the place did stop serving food early. I think it was 4pm for last orders which we got in at just before. And after we had finished eating, since the chefs and waiters were eating and cleaning up as it appears to be a cultural norm to take food break times all at the same time, they allowed us to go to the back booths and have a sleep for an hour. Can you imagine going to a fancy award winning eatery in say, England and just going for sleepy time inside the building after a munch? Crazy, right?
And lastly we need to talk about snacking, dessert, breakfast, and other things. There is a special breakfast food, which is like cooked food in a sort of soft dumpling, called a 'bāozi' (包子) and roughly pronounced as 'BAO-zuh'. And you can show them this symbol for plant based version: 素包子. It's quite good and usually the vendor will sell chewy corn on a cob to go with it. Though if you are under-sleeping due to the heat, be careful eating too much corn as it can make using the toilet difficult.
In some places, there is a small selection of pickled and spiced foods. If you don't enjoy spicy food, or garlic, you are going to have a difficult time in China. Luckily I love both and very much enjoyed these mini pick-and-mix of spiced goods. In the picture provided, that's all plant food. Even the food at the bottom that looks like prawns is actually onions. And if I was going back to China, I would take a glass Tupperware specifically for stocking up on those chillies and pickles when I can to then add to all other meals.
Another big culture shocker is China's lack of interest in chocolate. And whilst supermarkets did sell chocolate, the only option available as a vegan is dark chocolate and the options are bare. And therefore, I would strongly recommend you bring some cocoa powder with you on your visit, I couldn't see it in the supermarkets I went to. What you can do for your dessert after your din dins, if you drink coffee, is go to a coffee shop called 'Luckin Coffee'. And ask for a Coconut Latte - which has to be ordered through the app on their phone. It's strange because the entire franchise seems to have just stolen the old MSN notification sound, so any western Millennial visiting Luckin Coffee will receive a little unexpected jolt of nostalgia every time the barista gets an order in. The coconut lattes are pretty good, loaded with sugar. And I think would be even better with a teaspoon of cocoa powder, which I will be bringing, along with sneaking in other various chocolate bars to last the holiday. My choice of crisps is Lay's lime flavour, which comes in a sky blue packet, or these crisps shown in the picture that tasted a bit like paprika flavoured.
My last advice for eating food in China, is the Chinese specialise in Chinese food. Pizzas. Chips. Pastas. Burgers. The quality was extremely poor, and I wouldn't eat that, you'd be wasting your appetite. Though one time I did have a small cheeseless pizza delivered whilst getting a road-side hair cut in Shenzhen at 23:00 amongst towering skyscrapers that housed a 1000 apiece, and that felt quite special. And I'm told each apartment in these high rise blocks goes for about £650,000 a piece so it's not cheap living, though I do believe the prices are starting to come down.
The Vegan Issue
Animal welfare, from what I observed, is the part of Chinese culture most in need of change — pandas being the striking exception. That's not to hold up Western pet culture as the moral high ground; the doting over cats and dogs while eating everything else is its own kind of inconsistency. But the everyday relationship to animals in China struck me as more detached, and some of the reasons seem cultural rather than callous. Hygiene norms are strict — wet hair is widely thought to invite illness, so a smelly dog in the home is a harder sell — and older superstitions linger, like black animals such as crows reading as bad luck. Layer onto that an education culture that pushes children hard toward study from a young age, and animals can end up filed early as property or utility rather than fellow creatures.
In terms of insect wildlife, except ants and cockroaches and some snails, I only really saw 2 spiders in total in the whole visit, both in Chengdu. Observing native animals was quite disappointing though it's nice to hear crickets at night and near the centre of Shenzhen during a stormy night, in the sort of swampy woodland channels surrounding one of their main platforms for a light show on the buildings that happen on weekends, but worth double checking if you are visiting. In these swamp parts of the park, I did hear some strange noises that sounded like large toads.
And on the topic of Pandas, perhaps they are to myself an exception to my own rules though giant pandas can be found in the wild. For you probably are aware pandas are a 'vulnerable' animal, downgraded from being endangered in 2016[15]. But what you may not know is that Pandas aren't located everywhere in China's mountains and are area specific. The place called Chengdu, known as the Panda city, is definitely the capital. And they are Panda mad over there to get the tourism.
And it is the topic of Pandas we should evaluate as vegans as an exception to the rule of 'zoos' regarding some establishments and parks. The line in question being, does their newly adapted docile and energy conserving behaviour, justify the need for human intervention, which does need to be funded in some way? We're talking about a creature that the animal keepers are able to trade a mother Panda an apple for its young. Pandas tend to live a lot longer in captivity than in the wild. As the Smithsonian's National Zoo puts it: "They estimate that lifespan is about 15-20 years for wild pandas and about 30 years for those in human care."[17] The oldest living Panda recorded was Jia Jia, meaning, 'Good'[18]
A panda, the Ailuropoda melanoleuca, is a member of the 'Ursidae' bear family. And bears are vicious animals with a digestive system built for meat — short and simple, the gut of a carnivore rather than a dedicated plant-eater. And yet pandas of their own accord have rehabilitated themselves and live primarily off of bamboo, and tend to live just as long as other bears. Captive pandas, do vary from wild pandas, in terms of their gut microbiome which has been studied. Taken from the paper, 'Lessons from bamboo‐eating pandas and their gut microbiome: Gut microbiome flow and applications' states "Antibiotic‐resistant genes (e.g., aminoglycoside, glycylcycline, macrolide, beta‐lactam, puromycin, and bacitracin) are enriched in the captive panda gut microbiome compared with that of the wild pandas (Guo et al., 2019)."[16]
Yet they are very slow moving creatures, sloth like almost. I saw one taking a drink and it was like it was frozen for 3 minutes. And during the exhibition, I couldn't help but feel it was a bit wrong, in an artificial environment, with a large glass cabinet with onlookers. But without these 'bases', there's a high chance that species would be extinct. But that animal seemed completely oblivious to its onlookers and only concerned with eating. And if the environments they are in, aren't cruel, they're being looked after, and they need human help to increase their numbers due to how poorly they are at reproducing, I didn't take a strong issue with it.
All in all, I'll probably go back to China and visit more of it, along with bringing a better camera and making sure the lens is clean! Other things that surprised me is like in Shanghai for example, you will look at the faces of the Chinese men. I'd guess about 95% of them are all clean shaven. What's annoying is that despite this, you will be very hard pressed to find a set of razors to have a shave. So my words of advice is bring a shaving razor with you and shave before you leave for your trip. Also it's pointless bringing an aerosol deodorant or buying one in shops. And It's actually quite difficult to come back believe it or not. You are best buying roll on as it's less likely to be confiscated by the security on Subways. And also I wouldn't bother bringing a power bank. Chinese security is super strict on them, and if they don't recognise the brand, it'll probably be confiscated from you. Besides, practically everywhere in China there are these little yellow power banks you can rent if you are running low on juice:
Before going to China, you're going to want to download 3 apps, and get them set up whilst you've got functioning internet at home.
The apps are:
The WhatsApp of China - WeChat also has WeChat Pay, so you can set that up.
Alipay, the other big payment card option along with WeChat.
And the map app - Amap / AutoNavi - also doubles up as a method to book taxis at a lower price than hailing a cab. It also lets you check bus and train routes.
Research of Animal Consumption in China
Everything above is what I saw on the ground. What follows is the bigger picture behind it — how a country with such deep plant-based roots ended up here, laid out through the research itself.
In 2005, The China Study by Dr T. Colin Campbell was published, subtitled "the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted." Whether or not it earns that superlative, its scope was undeniably large: the book draws on a survey spanning "65 counties, 130 villages and 6,500 adults and their families."[1]
It is the dietary difference between rural China, and America that laid the foundations for the book. Dr. Campbell writes: "In America, 15-16% of our total calories comes from protein and upwards of 80% of this amount comes from animal-based foods. But in rural China only 9-10% of total calories comes from protein and only 10% of the protein comes from animal-based foods."[1]
And then also is explained the significance of such a difference: "What made this project especially remarkable is that, among the many associations that are relevant to diet and disease, so many pointed to the same finding: people who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease. Even relatively small intakes of animal-based food were associated with adverse effects. People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease. These results could not be ignored."[1]
China is one of the world's oldest continuous civilisations[2], and for most of that history its diet was predominantly plant-based. We can trace this with surprising directness: by excavating skeletal remains and analysing the carbon and nitrogen isotopes locked in bone collagen, researchers can reconstruct what people actually ate thousands of years ago.
One study mapping China's prehistoric diets — "The prehistoric roots of Chinese cuisines: Mapping staple food systems of China, 6000 BC–220 AD"[3] — used exactly this isotope evidence. It found regional variation in which plants dominated (millet-type crops in the north, other plant staples in the south), but the through-line is consistent: plants formed the base of the diet. Of one northern site, Xinglonggou, the authors conclude that people "directly consumed millet as a staple food, perhaps on a daily basis."[3] Animal inputs do show up in the nitrogen isotope data at that site — this wasn't a diet with zero animal products — but they sit at the margins of a fundamentally plant-based staple system.
This dietary heritage is part of what gives The China Study its force: it points to how humanity used to eat before the sickness of dominion and the hunger for the food of the bourgeois swept over the modern world. Which raises a question. Campbell revised and expanded the book in 2016, but it's now two decades on from the original — and China itself has moved sharply in the opposite direction from the one the book celebrated. Its biggest rival across the Pacific set the template for diet-driven disease; China now appears to be closing the gap. And the data bears that out.
A paper that examines China's agricultural transformation in the last century is titled: 'China in the period of transition from scarcity and extensive undernutrition to emerging nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases, 1949–1992'[4] using data to document nutritional changes and talks of a series of events that took place as these changes underwent.
The upheaval stretched across more than a century, beginning with the First Opium War against the British Empire in 1839 and running through the wars and occupations of the 20th century — a period in which China fell to being among the poorest nations on earth. The fighting gutted industrial capacity, pulled agricultural labour into conscription, and displaced populations, all of which drained the country's wealth. It was against this backdrop that the land reforms of 1949 set out to stabilise a devastated economy.
However, this reform's effect only went so far. Along with other contributing factors as the paper writes: "However, the rapid economic growth was not sustained due to natural disasters and political uncertainty. This period of change was marked by experiments, such as the Great Leap Forward in 1958–1962 and the Cultural Revolution in 1965–1976, which precipitated economic crises. "
Then it goes onto write: "Not until the late 1970s did the current strong economic model emerge to move China rapidly forward. In 1979 China implemented major land, social, and economic reforms. The country’s economy and agricultural productivity changed greatly after this time." [4] So a second reform took place, or a reform of reforms. According to the paper, these reforms did not arise simply from the country's recovery from the aforementioned wars, but followed a period of economic crises associated with natural disasters, political uncertainty, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. In response, China introduced major land, social, and economic reforms in 1979, moving towards a more market-oriented agricultural system.
One of the papers cited for shifts in diet, activity, and body composition is: 'Dynamics of the Chinese diet and the role of urbanicity, 1991-2011' of this states in its abstract: "The rapid decline in intake of coarse grains and, later, of refined grains and increases in intake of edible oils and animal-source foods accompanied by major eating and cooking behaviour shifts are leading to what might be characterized as an unhealthy Western type of diet, often based on traditional recipes with major additions and changes. The most popular animal-source food is pork, and consumption of poultry and eggs is increasing. The changes in cooking and eating styles include a decrease in the proportion of food steamed, baked, or boiled, and an increase in snacking and eating away from home. "[5]
Regarding the reforms that preceded this increase in animal-source foods, the paper 'China in the period of transition'[4] writes: "In 1979 China implemented major land, social, and economic reforms. The country’s economy and agricultural productivity changed greatly after this time" [4] and later follows with these statements: "Consumption of animal-source foods tripled between 1952 and 1992. The lowest intake level occurred in 1962. It increased slowly from 1962 to 1979 and has increased more rapidly since then. Intake of animal-source foods was higher and increased faster in urban areas than in rural areas. It nearly doubled in rural areas and tripled in urban areas over this study period" [4]
As this dietary shift has taken hold, a growing number of studies have tracked a parallel rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) — the chronic conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer, that aren't passed from person to person the way a virus is. China's rapid change effectively turns the country into a live case study: as the diet has westernised, researchers have been able to watch the disease burden move with it.
One such study, "Non-communicable disease burden in China, 1990–2023: Evidence from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2023" draws, from that study itself, and covers 31 provinces in Chinese Mainland and found NCDs were the major contributor to China's disease burden in 2023[6]. "Compared to 1990, the mortality rate increased by 239.14% and the DALY rate by 77.04% for neurological disorders. For mental disorders, mortality increased by 382.34% and the DALY rate by 25.82%. For musculoskeletal disorders, the DALY rate increased by 48.17%. " [6] though this study doesn't state animal products are the cause.
Another study from the same source, but an earlier year, titled: 'The burden of type 2 diabetes attributable to dietary risks in China: Insights from the global burden of disease study 2021'[7] states as their results: "In 2021, the results show that 21.43 % of T2DM-related (Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus) deaths and 23.51 % of DALYs were attributable to dietary risk factors, notably a diet low in whole grains and high in red and processed meats. Over the period from 1990 to 2021, there has been an increasing trend in the EAPCs of death rates and DALYs associated with dietary risks in China, suggesting a substantial impact of dietary factors on the burden of T2DM in the country."[7]
Another study published in 2016 titled: "Identification of Chinese dietary patterns and their relationships with health outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis" states from their results from 130 studies with over 900 000 participants, "Six dietary patterns were identified: traditional whole-grain diet (Traditional WG), traditional non-whole-grain diet (Traditional NWG), plant-based diet (Plant-based), animal food diet (Animal-food), Western energy-dense diet (Western) and other unclassified diets (Unclassified). The Plant-based diet was associated with a reduced risk of CVD and cancer from prospective studies, reduced risk of diabetes, hypertension, cognitive impairment and depressive symptoms from all study designs. "[8] As they also write "The burden of chronic diseases has been increasing rapidly in China. From 1990 to 2010, the age-standardised mortality of diabetes mellitus and ischaemic heart disease increased by 52·3 % and 31·6 %, respectively(Reference He, Li and Yang7,Reference Yang, Wang and Zeng10). "[8]
Even analyses framed generously toward animal products tend to reach a point where the data forces their hand. Take this study, published on Cambridge University's Cambridge Core: "Nutrition transition and chronic diseases in China (1990–2019): industrially processed and animal calories rather than nutrients and total calories as potential determinants of the health impact"[9]. It builds in several conditions that have to hold before its conclusion follows — the effect being that, so long as certain rules are observed, animal products are permitted to come along for the ride. Worth knowing before reading it: one of the authors, Anthony Fardet, has done work supported by Danone, though he publishes mostly on grains[10], and both Fardet and his co-author Edmond Rock have their names on a separate paper favourable to cow's milk[11]. Funding source and conclusion are known to correlate in nutrition research[12], so it's reasonable to read a paper's framing with its ties in mind — and then judge it on what it actually reports.
On their China paper, the authors build the analysis around their own framework — the "3Vs" rule. In their words: "This rule is based on three inclusive and interconnected metrics that governs the diet-global health relationship, namely the plant/animal calorie ratio (Rule 1 in French: 'Végétal' for plant, 85 % optimum daily calories), the food degree of processing (Rule 2: 'Vrai' for real foods, 85 % minimum daily calories), and food diversity, if possible organic, local and/or seasonal (Rule 3: 'Varié' for Varied). This simple tool theoretically and potentially suggests that the more a dietary pattern deviates from these rules, the less global health is preserved, for example with excess animal-based foods, and/or excess UPFs and/or an overly monotonous diet."[9]
The rule leaves the door open for animal products — it counts them as one input among several rather than the problem itself: "For the first part of the 3Vs rule, i.e. 'Végétal/Plant', animal-based foods encompassed white and red meat, dairy products, eggs, and seafood and fishes."[9] But read what the authors concede in the same breath. On their own account, animal and ultra-processed calories track directly with disease: "Indeed, current analyses of developed countries indicate that excess animal and UPF (ultra processed foods) calories are associated with increased risks of chronic diseases, especially overweight, obesity, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and hepatic steatosis, cardiovascular diseases, renal function decline and total cancers, all-cause mortality, and with the degradation of food system sustainability as well."[9]
The word doing the heavy lifting is "excess" — it implies a safe dose, a level below which animal products are fine. But look at the direction of their own finding: the associated risk doesn't switch on at some threshold and stay off beneath it. It scales. A framework built to keep animal foods in the diet still ends up documenting exactly why they're a problem.
The authors are careful to hedge. Under the heading "Adequacy to the 3Vs rule" they write:
"Therefore, a decrease in total dietary calories, but with more than 15 % of the calorie intake provided by animal-based foods appears to be associated with a higher prevalence of chronic diseases. Correlations obviously do not mean a strict causal link with increased animal-based product consumption."[9] And under "Limitations of the Study": "First, the ecological nature of our study may involve inference fallacies because correlations are not causalities, and chronic diseases are multifactorial."
It's tempting to read those lines as an escape hatch. They aren't. They're the caveat any ecological study — one that compares whole populations rather than tracking individuals — is required to make, because populations differ in dozens of ways at once. The same applies to The China Study, which rests on the same population-level design. No single observational study can prove that animal foods cause disease; admitting that isn't a weakness, it's the honest floor everyone in this field stands on. What builds the case is convergence — large populations across decades, a dose-response pattern, biological plausibility, and intervention studies all pointing the same way, which is exactly how science established that smoking causes cancer. The one thing worth watching here is the pairing: by keeping "animal and ultra-processed calories" bracketed together throughout, the paper leaves room for a reader to blame the processing alone and wave the animal component through — but the two are reported travelling together, and the direction of the association never reverses.
The study's own abstract lays out the design in full: "To study the impact of income change—specifically rapid income growth—on diet behaviour over time and by socioeconomic level, we used data from a prospective study of China begun in 1989 (followed up in 1991, 1993 and 1997). The subpopulation used in this study included 5783 subjects aged 20–45 years old from 3129 households. Dietary intakes were measured using a combination of the weighing method and three consecutive 24-h recalls. Detailed income and price data were collected, and predicted household per capita income was used in multivariate longitudinal random-effects models that described the consumption of several food groups and nutrients. Income elasticity was used to measure the changes for the effects of income over time on (a) the probability of consuming any food and (b) the quantity of food consumed."[13]
And speaking of their findings, they note something we already have learned here: "These aggregate statistics point out some of the most important changes in Chinese diets during the 1990s. While the incidence of high-carbohydrate staple food consumption increased, this was met with a substantial decline in the amount consumed per consumer. Most of the largest declines in the overall consumption of these staples occurred in the lowest income groups. As more people consumed these foods, the amount being consumed declined. A different situation emerged for the relatively high-fat animal foods and edible oils. While there were similar increases in the incidence of consumption of these high-fat foods, the average quantities consumed clearly increased for all income groups. "[13]
It's also good to highlight this point, "Consumption of traditional foods is decreasing. Chinese traditional foods were characterized by many staple foods (i.e., rice, wheat and wheat products), as available, with a small amount of vegetables and a few animal foods."[13]
Their results section is where the pattern sharpens — but first, a quick definition, since the findings lean on it. A tertile is a statistical measure that splits a dataset into three equal parts: the lower, middle and upper thirds. With that in hand, here is what they found: "Consumption of animal foods is increasing. Animal foods were luxury foods in China and only a few rich people could regularly consume them before 1988, but more people can afford them now. The proportion of people who ate animal foods increased from 91.9% in 1989 to 97.1% in 1997 in the high-income tertile and from 63.8% to 72.7% in the low-income tertile. The average per capita consumption of animal products increased by about 30% for all three income tertiles. The absolute increases were largest for the high-income tertile; their intake level and the increase were almost twice that of those in the lower income group."[13]
"The structure of the Chinese diet is changing with improved income, particularly in the low- and middle income groups. The Chinese diet is shifting away from traditional foods—rice, wheat and wheat products— toward high-energy density, high-fat and low-fiber diets. People in the low-income group have the highest decrease in cereal food intakes."[13]
Then comes the predictable feature, the increase of disease: "Following the nutrition transition, the pattern for death causes is shifting away from infectious diseases toward DR-NCD (diet-related noncommunicable diseases). The specific mortality of hypertension increased from 8.2 to 13.5 per 100,000 between 1984 and 1999, CVD from 153.2 to 193.0, diabetes from 5.1 to 15.4, and cancer from 116.2 to 140.5, respectively. This shift is noteworthy, as it seems to be concurrent with the increase in DR-NCD related to the circulatory system and cancer. Furthermore, the increase in the total mortality since the 1990s should not be overlooked. There was no clear increase in the total mortality before 1990, but an increase of 34.7 per 100,000 thereafter."[13]
But remember this paper is actually about income class, and how classes affect dietary behaviour, as they write: "The impacts of income changes on dietary behaviour differ over time. For example, in 1997 the quantity of beef and mutton consumption would have increased by 20% if people in the low- and middle-income groups received an extra 10% income, while the consumption would not have changed significantly for the same income groups in 1989."[13]
And they continue with: "The impacts of income change over time on dietary behavior are also different for the different income levels. For example, the income elasticity for the probability of consuming any poultry increased for all income groups, but the change was much smaller (and insignificant) for those with low income than for those with high income."[13]
So with the discussion, it then sees: "When people—particularly the poor—receive extra income, the first goal is to improve their diet. However, our results verify diet improvement always means extra edible oil, pork, or other meats. Poor people may also have the potential to be exposed to high-fat, high-energy density junk foods (Reidpath, Burns, Garrard, Mahoney, & Townsend, 2002)."[13]
"The Chinese diet is shifting away from the traditional, most healthful diet in the world, toward one that most high-income countries are attempting to change, and other countries may be able to bypass. Multivariate analyses of this study show that extra income is associated with a greater increase in high-fat diets, particularly among the poor. An increased income starts to show its potential detrimental effects on the health of a large population in most developing countries."[13] There is something poignant in that: a culture with one of the world's oldest plant-based traditions now moving, with rising income, toward the very diet wealthier nations are trying to undo.
The study's own discussion, read together, lands the point plainly. Cheap, plentiful supply means "even the poor can afford more fat and animal source foods," and "extra income is associated with a greater increase in high-fat diets, particularly among the poor" — who are also the group "more vulnerable to these effects."[13] Their closing warning is blunt: "Health improvements of the last two decades may be reversed if DR-NCD cannot be controlled."[13] And this was 2004 — two decades before the picture we opened with.
Which brings us back to the question this section opened with. The plant-based tradition Campbell's book held up is, by the most recent measures, in retreat. A 2023 study of meat and vegetable consumption — "Patterns of meat and vegetable consumption among community-dwelling adults aged 18 years and older in China", drawing on 60,945 participants in a post-COVID context — found that "a large proportion of community-dwelling adults consumed meat exceeding the recommended level, whereas a small proportion consumed vegetables reaching the recommended level in regional China in 2023."[14] In other words: two decades of data, ending in the present, all pointing the same way.
Closing - Vegan in China
The beautiful folk of China are a peaceful, hard-working, scooter loving people - with atrocious animal rights records. You'd think if hotels had delivery robots, streets and airports and train stations have cleaning robots, and even in Shenzhen - though I didn't see any - there are police drones and droids that they would be quite advanced in other aspects of living. But when it comes to diet, they're very much behind in a lot of ways, and they can't exactly be stuck in their old ways in these newly adopted habits, can they?
I have to question why it was Chinese culture strayed so far into eating animal products from its predominantly plant-based roots? The concern for other species, morality of animal welfare and health implications in animal consumption is practically non-existent. Is it the highly competitive work environment in China? Or I wonder if it has anything related to the one child policy and favouring of men that has then led to finding out the sex of a baby before birth to be illegal? Could it be the inescapable mutation of war and famine of China's recent history and the disregard for life war brings? Maybe the sheer amount of demand for meat has enabled aggressive factory farming methods that have become normalised? Is there a circle of life message encoded into the yin and yang of Taoism or the reincarnation of Buddhism? Or perhaps it's the oldest driver of all: the aspiration to eat like those above you. China had its emperors and its dynasties until barely over a century ago, and steep hierarchies tend to pull those at the bottom toward imitating the appetites at the top — the same pattern you can trace in almost any society with a wide gap between its rungs. Either way, based on how this country eats, they're heading for real problems in the future. It's quite disappointing.
Research references on China's dietary transition, nutrition, and giant pandas.
It sucks.